Applied optics articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article |

    Slow-light propagation provides the means to enhance and control light–matter interactions and it has been predicted to increase the gain coefficient of active waveguides. Here, Ek et al.experimentally demonstrate that the gain of a material can be enhanced using slow-light effects in photonic crystals.

    • Sara Ek
    • , Per Lunnemann
    •  & Jesper Mork

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In terahertz sideband generation, an electron–hole pair is accelerated in a semiconductor by a terahertz field to then recombines forming a frequency comb, but so far experimental realizations have relied on the large fields of free electron lasers. Here, Crosse et al.propose bi-layer graphene for sideband generation at lower fields.

    • J. A. Crosse
    • , Xiaodong Xu
    •  & R. B. Liu

  • Article |

    Despite many recent advances in silicon photonics for optical telecommunications and on-chip optical interconnects, the issue of power consumption has not been fully addressed. Here, Virot et al. propose a waveguide avalanche germanium photodiode suitable for low power consumption interconnects.

    • Léopold Virot
    • , Paul Crozat
    •  & Laurent Vivien

  • Article |

    Fibre optic event horizons have been described in the time domain where a soliton-induced refractive index barrier modifies the velocity of a probe. Here, Webb et al.describe horizon dynamics in the frequency domain in terms of cascaded four-wave mixing between discrete single-frequency fields.

    • Karen E. Webb
    • , Miro Erkintalo
    •  & Stuart G. Murdoch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The stopped light principle engenders an inherent feedback mechanism for light. Pickering et al. study the implications of this local feedback in gain-enhanced plasmonic nanostructures and find the natural emergence of ultrafast photonic and plasmonic cavity-free lasing on the nanoscale.

    • Tim Pickering
    • , Joachim M. Hamm
    •  & Ortwin Hess

  • Article |

    The differential absorption of left and right handed light, circular dichroism, is typically observed only in chiral objects. Here, the authors demonstrate that giant circular dichroism can be induced in non-chiral objects when the left and right handed circularly polarized modes used are vortex beams.

    • Xavier Zambrana-Puyalto
    • , Xavier Vidal
    •  & Gabriel Molina-Terriza

  • Article |

    Ambipolar transport, necessary to realise PN-junctions, is unfortunately missing from most two-dimensional semiconductors. Here, the authors fabricate few-layer black phosphorous field-effect transistors, define PN-junctions and demonstrate full electrostatic control of the device by means of local gating.

    • Michele Buscema
    • , Dirk J. Groenendijk
    •  & Andres Castellanos-Gomez

  • Article |

    X-ray Fourier-transform holography has been restricted by a limited choice of reference waves. Here, Martin et al.demonstrate X-ray Fourier-transform holography with an almost unrestricted choice for the reference wave, allowing greater flexibility in the design of holographic experiments.

    • Andrew V. Martin
    • , Adrian J. D’Alfonso
    •  & Henry N. Chapman

  • Article |

    Conventional flash memory devices are voltage driven and found to be unsafe for confidential data storage. Here, the authors propose a light driven, rewritable photonic flash memory device based on upconversion nanocrystals with a high ON/OFF ratio and long retention time.

    • Ye Zhou
    • , Su-Ting Han
    •  & V.A.L. Roy

  • Article |

    Photonic crystals used for many optical devices are the materials made of nanoscaled periodic structures that diffract light. Yue et al. design and fabricate a soft mechanochromic hydrogel that exhibits a fast colour switching rate at 0.1 ms in a full-colour band.

    • Youfeng Yue
    • , Takayuki Kurokawa
    •  & Jian Ping Gong

  • Article |

    The thermalization of high-energy photons limits the efficient conversion of photon energy in photovoltaic applications. Here, Saeed et al. consider optical extraction of the excess energy of hot carriers by emission of infrared photons, using erbium ions in combination with silicon nanocrystals.

    • S. Saeed
    • , E. M. L. D. de Jong
    •  & T. Gregorkiewicz

  • Article |

    Stimulated Raman scattering limits the energy of dissipative solitons by converting excess energy into noisy Raman pulses. Using delay compensation, Babin et al. demonstrate that these noisy pulses can become coherent Raman dissipative solitons leading to the formation of multicolour bound dissipative soliton complexes.

    • Sergey A. Babin
    • , Evgeniy V. Podivilov
    •  & Alexander Apolonski

  • Article |

    Anderson localization is a regime where diffusion is inhibited, leading to the localization of waves. Here, Leonetti et al.use wavefront shaping to achieve focusing in disordered optical fibres in the Anderson regime and demonstrate efficient focusing action.

    • Marco Leonetti
    • , Salman Karbasi
    •  & Claudio Conti

  • Article |

    Steam generation from solar energy is currently inefficient because of costly high optical concentration and large heat losses involved. Ghasemi et al. develop an efficient approach with internal efficiency up to 85% at low water temperature using a carbon-based material with a double-layer structure.

    • Hadi Ghasemi
    • , George Ni
    •  & Gang Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Two-dimensional (2D) materials with a large electronic bandgap in addition to high carrier mobility are required for future nanoelectronics. Here, the authors present a theoretical investigation of black phosphorous, a new category of 2D semiconductor with high potential for nanoelectronic applications.

    • Jingsi Qiao
    • , Xianghua Kong
    •  & Wei Ji

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Unlike conventional lasers that require a uniform resonant cavity to operate, random lasers use a highly disordered gain medium in which scattering is dominant. Hokr et al. report Raman lasing from a bulk three-dimensional disordered medium whose intensity exceeds that of other random lasers by many orders of magnitude.

    • Brett H. Hokr
    • , Joel N. Bixler
    •  & Vladislav V. Yakovlev

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers consist of an active medium in between two distributed Bragg reflectors. Czerniuk et al.show that the resonant mechanical modes of these periodic structures efficiently modulate the laser emission intensity with frequencies of up to 40 GHz.

    • T. Czerniuk
    • , C. Brüggemann
    •  & M. Bayer

  • Article |

    The integration of photonic components on silicon chips creates the challenge of achieving a uniform and efficient architecture. Here, the authors demonstrate on-chip light-emitters, photodetectors, photovoltaic power supply and optical data link, all based on InGaAs nanoresonators grown on silicon.

    • Roger Chen
    • , Kar Wei Ng
    •  & Connie Chang-Hasnain

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Like conventional antennas, optical nanoantennas can transmit and receive signals but on much smaller length scales. Dregely et al.measure the optical power transmitted and received in the far-field by plasmonic nanoantennas and show that they can control the direction of transmission over a broad range.

    • Daniel Dregely
    • , Klas Lindfors
    •  & Harald Giessen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Integrated photonic circuits with arbitrary control over the light polarization state are important in quantum information applications. Corrielli et al. realize compact quantum state tomography of polarization-entangled photons using waveguide-integrated waveplates fabricated by femtosecond laser inscription.

    • Giacomo Corrielli
    • , Andrea Crespi
    •  & Roberto Osellame

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Carrier multiplication can improve the performance of solar cells, but its efficiency is still not high enough to considerably increase the power output of practical devices. Cirloganu et al.show that appropriately designed core-shell quantum dots can enhance the carrier multiplication yield four-fold.

    • Claudiu M. Cirloganu
    • , Lazaro A. Padilha
    •  & Victor I. Klimov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Optical modulators on silicon promise to deliver ultralow power communication networks between or within computer chips. Here, the authors demonstrate a silicon modulator operating with less than one femtojoule energy and are able to compensate for thermal drift over a 7.5 °C temperature range.

    • Erman Timurdogan
    • , Cheryl M. Sorace-Agaskar
    •  & Michael R. Watts

  • Article |

    Fluorescent organic light-emitting diodes hold promise for next-generation full-colour displays, but are currently limited by the internal electroluminescence quantum efficiency. Nakanotani et al.break this limit and demonstrate nearly 100% efficiency in a double-dopant system without a rare metal.

    • Hajime Nakanotani
    • , Takahiro Higuchi
    •  & Chihaya Adachi

  • Article |

    Despite their two-dimensional nature, metasurfaces offer flexible and efficient control over the properties of light passing through them. Here, the authors realize chiral silicon-based metasurfaces for applications as polarizers or as emitters of polarized thermal radiation.

    • Chihhui Wu
    • , Nihal Arju
    •  & Gennady Shvets

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Shannon limit describes the limit of error-free information transmission and thus the information that can be transmitted in telecommunications. Here, the authors derive the Shannon limit for nonlinear, regenerative systems, expanding on the classical linear case.

    • M. A. Sorokina
    •  & S. K. Turitsyn

  • Article |

    X-ray absorption imaging is used for early breast cancer detection but can barely identify the morphology of microcalcifications—a possible indicator of cancer. Wang et al.develop a technique to non-invasively classify different types of microcalcifications and achieve 100% sensitivity on phantom data.

    • Zhentian Wang
    • , Nik Hauser
    •  & Marco Stampanoni

  • Article
    | Open Access

    One of the main goals of lap-on-a-chip systems is to manipulate single particles with automation of modern-day computer circuits. Lim et al.develop an integrated circuit for transporting magnetic particles with time-varying magnetic fields that can be applied to the parallel analysis of single cells.

    • Byeonghwa Lim
    • , Venu Reddy
    •  & CheolGi Kim

  • Article |

    Macromolecular complexes hold promise for future generations of drug delivery carriers, but probing their structures with high resolution is challenging. Here, the authors combine X-ray free-electron laser and synchrotron approaches to reveal the core-shell structure of RNA interference microsponges.

    • Marcus Gallagher-Jones
    • , Yoshitaka Bessho
    •  & Changyong Song

  • Article |

    Characterizing femtosecond X-ray pulses that vary from shot to shot is important for data interpretation. Here, Behrens et al.measure time-resolved lasing effects on the electron beam and extract the temporal profile of X-ray pulses using an X-band radiofrequency transverse deflector.

    • C. Behrens
    • , F.-J. Decker
    •  & J. Wu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Absorption by an optical nanoantenna determines its interaction strength with light, yet this quantity is hidden from conventional spectroscopy. Gennaro et al. now demonstrate a spectroscopic technique that reveals a nanoantenna’s absorption by recovering its amplitude and phase response.

    • Sylvain D. Gennaro
    • , Yannick Sonnefraud
    •  & Rupert F. Oulton

  • Article |

    A quantum implementation of coin flipping—a cryptographic primitive allowing distrustful parties to agree on a random bit—may offer security advantages over classical implementations. Pappa et al.enhance a commercial quantum key distribution system to prove such advantages over long distances.

    • Anna Pappa
    • , Paul Jouguet
    •  & Eleni Diamanti

  • Article |

    In its optical manifestation, supersymmetry can potentially establish close relationships between seemingly different dielectric structures. Here, the authors use the perfect global phase matching afforded by supersymmetry for mode conversion and mode division multiplexing in highly multimoded systems.

    • Matthias Heinrich
    • , Mohammad-Ali Miri
    •  & Demetrios N. Christodoulides

  • Article |

    Sorting of material chirality is demanded in many industries, and conventional strategies are limited to the usage of chiral shape of the entity to be sorted. Tkachenko and Brasselet present a passive optical sorting method to achieve the same goal, which relies on the chirality–light interaction.

    • Georgiy Tkachenko
    •  & Etienne Brasselet

  • Article |

    The performance of perovskite-based solar cells has improved dramatically in recent years, yet surprisingly little is known about the details of how they work. Grancini et al. report results that suggest that their behaviour is dominated by the transport of free carriers rather than excitons.

    • Valerio D’Innocenzo
    • , Giulia Grancini
    •  & Annamaria Petrozza

  • Article |

    Smart luminescent materials have many potential applications. Here, the authors synthesize a series of responsive iridium complexes, with tunable emission colours, and use their mechano-, vapo- and electrochromic phosphorescence properties to construct a proof of concept data recording device.

    • Huibin Sun
    • , Shujuan Liu
    •  & Wei Huang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Holography provides amplitude and phase information when imaging objects, which enables greater understanding of a range of samples. Here, the authors adapt holography to scanning near-field optical microscopy, providing rapid phase-resolved imaging on the nanoscale at visible and infrared frequencies.

    • M. Schnell
    • , P. S. Carney
    •  & R. Hillenbrand

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Next generation high power lasers will produce fields so intense they can only be controlled with components made of plasmas. Vincenti et al.explore the properties of one such component—the relativistic plasma mirror—and construct an analytical framework to improve their use in focusing intense laser fields.

    • H. Vincenti
    • , S. Monchocé
    •  & F. Quéré

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